Michael Agness on Being ‘Thunderstruck’ by Innovation
This image was created using Adobe Firefly's generative AI features and a provided headshot. | Credit: PRINTING United Alliance
As part of Packaging Impressions’ PRINTING United Expo Intel series, we’re spotlighting the personalities and technologies shaping the future of custom-printed labels and packaging. This year’s Expo takes place Oct. 22–24, 2025, in Orlando, Florida, and we’re bringing you smart, witty insights from the exhibitors driving innovation.
In this installment, we catch up with Michael Agness, executive vice president, Americas, at Hybrid Software, to talk digital trends, conical cups, and a booth anthem that packs a punch.
Q: Which trend in labels or packaging do you secretly love or love to hate?
A: The trend for adaptation to digital labels is one I always love. Digital means more SKUs with faster turnaround, which drives continuous efficiency improvements. It’s also transforming converters into manufacturing specialists.
Q: What’s the most unexpected label or package you’ve seen produced using your technology or materials?
A: I haven’t seen this stateside, but in Europe we have a customer producing variable data random images on conical cups. That’s variable, warped, and distorted data printed digitally and formed into a paper cup.
Q: If your booth had a theme song, what would it be and why?
A: AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” It takes a while for customers to understand our technology and company culture, but once they do, they feel the power and passion — just like AC/DC delivering this song.
Q: Final Dispatch: What’s the sleeper feature in your solution that converters need to know about?
A: Hybrid Software is also a RIP company. We control our own source code, and eventually in print, we need to RIP. Having the most powerful PDF editor and a RIP means we’re the only company that controls the front end to final print — with access to the source code from beginning to end.
As editor-in-chief of Packaging Impressions — the leading publication and online content provider for the printed packaging markets — Linda Casey leverages her experience in the packaging, branding, marketing, and printing industries to deliver content that label and package printers can use to improve their businesses and operations.
Prior to her role at Packaging Impressions, Casey was editor-in-chief of BXP: Brand Experience magazine, which celebrated brand design as a strategic business competence. Her body of work includes deep explorations into a range of branding, business, packaging, and printing topics.
Casey’s other passion, communications, has landed her on the staffs of a multitude of print publications, including Package Design, Converting, Packaging Digest, Instant & Small Commercial Printer, High Volume Printing, BXP: Brand Experience magazine, and more. Casey started her career more than three decades ago as news director for WJAM, a youth-oriented music-and-news counterpart to WGCI and part of the Chicago-based station’s AM band presence.
